ABSTRACT
This chapter examines ways in which economic development and the social change associated with it have shaped the employment of Russian males, Russian females, and the males and females of Muslim ethnic groups within Uzbekistan, the largest of the Central Asian republics. In the course of Soviet industrial development, ethnicity and gender have been very significant determinants of access to expanding economic opportunities. These gender differences are evident throughout the USSR, but the concentration of women in agriculture and their exclusion entirely from paid labor has remained especially great among Muslim ethnic groups. Combining ethnicity and gender shows a status hierarchy in Central Asia in which Russian males, as a group, are clearly in the highest position; Muslim females unquestionably fall at the bottom. Significant strains may be emerging in Soviet Central Asia as a consequence of new patterns in the division of labor by ethnicity and gender.
